By James Reynolds
BBC News, Akcakale, Turkey-Syria border
Akcakale border crossing
between is now shut
On the road facing the Syrian border,
a single Turkish army tank sits behind a mound of earth.
Its sights point across 100 metres of scrubland towards the border.
The town of Akcakale has felt some of the effects of its neighbour's
conflict. It has been hit several times by shells fired from across the border.
Muhittin Kaydi can see Syria from his front garden. He used to work as a
money changer at the nearby border post.
Muhittin Kaydi says his
children are now scared to play outside
But that post is now closed, and Mr Kaydi has lost his job. He finds it hard
to reassure seven children that their home is safe.
"I tell them to calm down," he says, "but every time a door slams, they think
it's an explosion - I swear. They are too scared to play outside."
'Up and down'
A single street away from the border, workers have put up a new blue gate at
the Timucin family home.
“Start Quote
We should not go to war with Syria. We help wounded
Syrians. We're Muslims, they're Muslims”
End Quote Musa Vural Retired civil servant
On 3 October, five members of the family were killed
when a shell landed in their yard. Drivers slow their cars as they go by in
order to have a look at the house.
A few hundred metres away from the border in the centre of town, Mahmut Denli
sits behind the counter of his jewellery shop.
Inside his shop, a small TV tuned to Bloomberg News stands on top of a
safe.
"If anything happens on the border, we're the first to feel it," Mr Denli
says.
"For the last month, things have been up and down. But I live here, I have my
life here. How would being afraid help?"
Refugee's
fears
For several weeks the sporadic shellfire kept the town's Suleyman Sah primary
school closed.
"My three kids were really bored at home," Mr Denli says, "so I talked to the
school's director to ask him to re-open it."
On Wednesday, the authorities decided that it was safe enough to do it.
Police and the army have
stepped up security across the town
In the main yard in late afternoon, dozens of children line up to be counted
by their teachers.
One class takes part in a noisy relay race - children run to touch a wall
painted with a character from the Smurfs.
Across the road, two black armoured jeeps are parked outside the police
station. A group of female students from a religious school chats at an outdoor
tea shop.
A young man called Nuri introduces himself as a Syrian refugee from a village
just across the border.
He says that he came to Turkey 10 days ago.
But he chooses not to live in one of the dozen or so refugee camps that
Turkey has organised for the more than 100,000 Syrian refugees who have entered
this country.
"They have cameras everywhere," Nuri alleges. He fears that the female
members of his family would be mistreated inside the nearest camp on the main
road outside Akcakale.
Turkey stresses that it provides humane conditions for all Syrian
refugees.
A group of older men sits on tiny wooden stools in front of a tobacco
stand.
"When the parliament passed its bill last week (to authorise cross-border
measures against Syria), the Syrians pulled back from the border," says retired
civil servant Musa Vural.
"This gave us breathing space," he says, as he rolls a cigarette from a bag
of tobacco at the stand.
"We should not go to war with Syria. We help wounded Syrians. We're Muslims,
they're Muslims," he adds.
